For many years, aerobic training was considered the staple of any exercise program, especially if weight loss was the goal. Aerobic training usually means running, though other activates can also be aerobic (biking or swimming). Aerobic just means that you are using oxygen to maintain your activity for a long period of time, so these types of activates are also known as endurance training.
There are many reasons people engage in aerobic activity, and if you just love running, by all means keep going. But for those of you that only do it because you have heard that it is healthy, it’s time to start thinking about alternatives. For both cardiovascular health and body composition (percent body fat), aerobic training is at best a slow way to get there. At worst, it is a total waste of time! This goes more for body fat, though when you consider how many hours people put into endurance training, even the cardiovascular benefits begin looking a little weak.
The problem is that there has never really been any data to back up the fat loss benefits of aerobic training. In a study looking at two groups of obese women, the researchers found that adding 45 minutes of aerobic training 5 days a week for 12 weeks had NO EFFECT over dieting alone. That is 4.5 hour a week of running that did nothing!
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9738131
Even in a study looking at a six month period where the participants were running for 50 minutes, 5 times per week, the results came out poorly. After over 100 hours of exercise, there was no additional effect on weight or body fat levels. I would not be happy if I put that much time into something that resulting is such little progress.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17200169
So what when wrong? Why were people so sure that this is the way fat loss occurs?
It all comes from the myth of the fat burning zone. It’s not so much a myth as it is a misguided understanding of fat loss. The fat burning zone is the zone in which your body is using fat as its main source of energy. The way the body works is to utilize fat more at lower intensities and utilize carbs more at higher intensities. So the logic runs that if you are burning a high percentage from fat, then you will be able to burn more fat calories overall! There are two flaws in this argument. First, by this logic, sitting on your couch would actually burn the most fat because you are at rest! The problem is that you are not burning very many calories total, so the percentage doesn’t matter. The second, and more important factor is that this only takes into account what happens during the workout. There is no recognition of the recovery period after exercise. If you were only look at what happens in the body during a workout you would notice similar levels of fat burned for a given amount of exercise, regardless of intensity. The missing factor in all of this is what happens in the 48 hours after you leave the gym.
Your body is always looking to restore equilibrium, and the further your push it away from your resting state, the harder it has to work to get back. So when you have a long slow training session, you may burn some calories during the workout, but your body doesn’t have to work very hard to restore itself after. The more intense the workout, the more work you body has to recover.
In a study comparing a 20-week endurance training program with a 15-week high intensity interval training program, the researchers found that the endurance group burned over 28000 calories while the interval group only burned around 13500 calories. Despite burning only half the calories, the interval training group actually showed a NINE TIMES greater reduction in subcutaneous fat (this is important because this is the fat that lies under the skin and can give the dimpled cellulite look).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8028502
The truth is, exercise is not about what happens at the gym, but it is what your body does in response to that exercise during the recovery period. So start thinking about how you can push yourself at the gym to make sure your body will be in need of rest. I don’t recommend going to the gym and killing yourself, you need to build up. So start incorporating weight training and interval training into your routine and see the difference it makes. If time is limited, weight training is always better due to the large requirements it places on your muscles. Interval training is a good supplement to weight training but should not replace it. Good luck and start hitting those weights!
If you want to know more, check out the other “weight loss” tags where I have written further on training and dieting to help you lose weight.
Colin
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